Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 48: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MOTrER OF INVENTION By TOM GODWIN Ft’s long been held that Necessity is the mother of invention. But there has been no adequate discussion of the father of invention—Hard Work? lliustrated by Freas The human mind is adaptabie aid can condition itself to acknowledge the existence of any circumstance, even such an unpleasant circumstance as the cer- tainty of death. The human mind is stubborn, and while it will acknowledge the existence of unpleasant circumstances, it refuses to accept such circumstances as unalter- able, The human mind can be very in- genious at altering unpleasant circum- stances. (From “Variations Among Our Galactic Cultures,” by the Antarean philosopher, B’Ral Gethan.) T was hot in the drive room of the Siar Scout and Jim Brannon, Ship’s Drive Technician, was sick. It had started as another siege of his chronic indigestion, somewhat aggravated by the lecture his wife had given him that morning on his mental, physical and financial insigaiiicance, greatly increased by an ill-chosen meal at the Spaceport’s cafeteria, and now rapidiy becoming a serious attack of acute indigestion. Of all the factors, the heat was the worst. The drive room portholes were open and a blower fan mounted in one of them was forcing great volumes of air through the room, but the air was being scooped from no more than ten feet above the scorched surface of Spaceport 1 and it was hot and smothering with the humidity of tropical New Earth in midsummer. He made a checkmark on the pad of ship’s drive-inspection forms in his hand to show that the generaicr had been inspected and found to be in per- fect operating condition, then returned the pad and pencil to his pocket be- fore wiping the sweat otf his forehead. The Bern nuclear converter was the last item in the drive room to be checked and he carried his box of tools and testing equipment over to it; a small, mousy man who usually moved with slow precision but hurry- ing now as he felt the first dizziness that was sometimes the forerunner of a faint spell. The nuclear converter, which sup- plied both the fissionable fuel for the drive rockets and powered the ship’s generator, was a fairly compact and self-contained unit of which only its fuel inlet required inspection. He ex- tracted the special wrench from his . tool box that unlatched the clamps on 46 Connie ooOokKkS.e© iim